I just finished reading David Grann’s 2009 bestseller The Lost City of Z (soon to be a movie), which tells the story of Lt. Col. Percy Fawcett’s 1925 disappearance in the Amazon jungle while searching for what he believed was a monumental stone city lost to time. The story of a dashing explorer who vanished without a trace has been a source of fascination for the past nine decades, though to be quite frank, I didn’t find his disappearance all that compelling. I had rather hoped to find more information about Fawcett’s beliefs about the lost city he named Z, but Grann provides only a few hints and details. What he discusses, though, is a fascinating illustration of the consequences of fringe beliefs.

Fawcett’s public proclamations on the lost city of Z were fairly sober. He spoke of the possibility of a monumental city akin to those of Mesoamerica or the Inca, and he described his belief that a Portuguese traveler had run across this place in 1753 and recorded it on a faded document housed in Rio de Janeiro. That account spoke of a large and opulent city of stone, whose entrance gate contained three great arches, atop which an indecipherable alphabet was carved. In the center of the city stood, as I translate, “a black stone column of extraordinary greatness, and atop it the statue of an ordinary man with one hand on his left hip, and the right arm extended, pointing the index finger to the North Pole.” (I am not certain if the Portuguese word ordinário was meant to refer to an ordinary man or, as also used in the 1700s, an ordained bishop.) Another statue depicted a beardless youth “crowned with laurel.” A great temple was a work of such amazing artistry that the writer was left in awe. Beyond the city was a river leading to a field of great tombs, all covering in writing. Much later, Barry Fell would declare the writing (based on hand-drawn copies in the manuscript) Ptolemaic Egyptian, and the city therefore Classical. Here I fault Grann for misleading his readers somewhat. He edits the manuscript to remove all elements of the fantastic, listing only “stone archways, a statue, roads, and a temple.” He makes the city seem plausible by removing the improbable. “I do not assume that ‘The City’ is either large or rich,” Fawcett wrote, disingenuously. But privately his beliefs were much different. He told the Royal Geographic Society that he believed that Z might be an outpost of Atlantis, destroyed by a cataclysm 11,000 years ago, the memory which he said could have been accurately preserved in folklore through the “lifetime of only 110 centenarians” or men of normal lifespans repeating the story but 184 times down the generations. Fawcett grew upset that the RGS elders dismissed his ideas. But even these were not the depths of his belief in fringe history. Unbeknownst to the public following his adventures, and largely hidden from the Royal Geographic Society that sponsored them, Fawcett had devoted himself to Theosophy, following the example of his idolized elder brother Edward, who assisted Helena Blavatsky in researching The Secret Doctrine and later became a science fiction novelist. Percy Fawcett became obsessed with Blavatsky’s vision of the human past, and he considered Z to be an outpost of the extraterrestrial gods who came to earth in deepest prehistory, akin to the “first rock cities” the Lemurians built “out of stone and lava” according to Blavasky. Fawcett began writing for spiritualist journals like the Occult Review, though he rarely presented his full view of Z. When his first few expeditions to find the city failed, he turned for help to a psychic, Margaret Lumley Brown (a.k.a. “Irene Hay”), and Brown, in a letter, fed into Fawcett’s belief that he had formed a special connection to the lost history of Atlantis and its far-flung colonies:

Your query suggests you’ve been getting communications purporting to be of an Atlantean nature. Such is not impossible as Atlantis is very much ‘in the air’ just now. Such communication might come through sensitives; that is to say waves of released information are being picked up, or a deliberate plan is being developed.

Fawcett had come to believe that Z was a “White Lodge” of the Great White Brotherhood of Theosophy, the trans-dimensional beings or Ascended Masters who came to earth from parallel versions of the Moon and Venus and Mars. Here, Fawcett’s claims seem a bit at odds with Theosophy itself, which in his day described the Great White Lodge as the earthly occult hierarchy of reincarnated masters, housed all over the world, and headed (at least in 1911) by one of the last “Lords of the Flame, the Children of the Fire-mist, the great beings who came down from Venus nearly eighteen million years ago to help and to lead the evolution of humanity” and to secretly control history from behind the scenes, according to Theosophist Charles Webster Leadbetter, writing in The Inner Life (1911). I am not sure where the discrepancy arises, but it’s probably due to Fawcett’s development of his own personal vision of prehistory that combined Biblical, Classical, and Theosophical material. In his last writings before leaving on his ill-fated expedition—writings his family kept secret for decades—Fawcett spoke of the End Times, of Atlantis, and how Atlantis might have been the fabled Eden. Z, he confessed, might have been “the cradle of all civilizations,” the very spot where the aliens from other worlds touched down to spark the human race. He believed he might attain transcendence by entering the city, according to Grann. Fawcett vanished in search of the city, along with his son Jack and a family friend. Fawcett’s son Brian read these writings and asked himself in his diary, “Was Daddy’s whole conception of ‘Z,’ a spiritual objective, and the manner of reaching it a religious allegory?” Grann is not terribly concerned with this aspect of Percy Fawcett’s obsession; his interest lies in Fawcett’s expedition more than its objectives. Nevertheless, the brief glimpses he provides into the Theosophical worldview that overtook the explorer and led him on a quest into madness are fascinating. Grann tries to partially rescue Fawcett from charges of lunacy by noting that there really was a medieval-era civilization in the Amazon, composed of earthworks and platform mounds and causeways, all lost to the jungle when the Conquest’s diseases wiped out Native populations. But it bears no actual resemblance to the fantasy of stone pyramids and Atlantean secrets Fawcett truly sought. It doesn’t match the 1753 description either, which specified that the ruins were of stone and of a city with arched gates. The truth of the matter is that Fawcett formed the myth of Z out of a Theosophical interpretation of scraps of myth and legend, and then dressed it up in the language of science.

"Some seekers called it El Dorado, others the City of Z. But the jungle swallowed them and nothing was found, prompting the rest of the world to call it a myth. The Amazon was too inhospitable, said 20th century scholars, to permit large human settlements.

Now, however, the doomed dreamers have been proved right: there was a great civilisation. New satellite imagery and fly-overs have revealed more than 200 huge geometric earthworks carved in the upper Amazon basin near Brazil's border with Bolivia.

Spanning 155 miles, the circles, squares and other geometric shapes form a network of avenues, ditches and enclosures built long before Christopher Columbus set foot in the new world. Some date to as early as 200 AD, others to 1283.

Scientists who have mapped the earthworks believe there may be another 2,000 structures beneath the jungle canopy, vestiges of vanished societies.

The structures, many of which have been revealed by the clearance of forest for agriculture, point to a "sophisticated pre-Columbian monument-building society", says the journal Antiquity, which has published the research."

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Only Me

8/27/2014 07:20:25 am

"Fawcett grew upset that the RGS elders dismissed his ideas."

Gee, I don't suppose his stories of a 62' long giant anaconda, a cat-like dog he claimed to see twice and the giant Apazauca spider helped very much.

Strangely, the Theosophical connection was addressed by television director Misha Williams in 2004. According to the British newspaper The Observer, he studied Fawcett's private papers and proposed he never intended to return from his ill-fated expedition. Instead, Fawcett wanted to found a commune based on Theosophical principles and the worship of his son.

I wonder what Fawcett would think of all this?

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EP

8/27/2014 07:25:53 am

Man, I was just reading about that whole cult thing!

What I want to know is how they came up with a supid name like "Z".

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Only Me

8/27/2014 07:47:13 am

If I were to hazard a guess, I think he chose "Z" to limit interest in his expeditions by potential rivals. He believed "Z" to be the lost city of El Dorado, so being the first to discover and prove its existence would have made him world-famous.

Hey, he could have beaten L. Frank Baum to the punch and named it Oz :)

EP

8/27/2014 07:56:30 am

Wait, how would calling it "Z" limit others' interest???

Also, Ancient Aliens should do an episode on Baum's Oz books. He's got way more psychedelic occult stuff than all the comic books combined. (Like that weird theory about concentric spheres inside the Hollow Earth.)

Not the Comte de Saint Germain

8/27/2014 08:41:08 am

I always assumed the name Z was similar to the habit of labeling unknown things "X". Fawcett didn't know what the city's inhabitants had called it, after all.

666

8/27/2014 08:44:36 am

Fawcett called the city X

666

8/27/2014 08:54:55 am

Probably a typo

Roy Stemman, Atlantis and The Lost Lands (1976), page 54:

"Fawcett came into possession of a map showing the location of a lost city that he called "X." In 1925, Fawcett set out in search of X with his son Jack and a friend but no member of their party was ever..."

Only Me

8/27/2014 09:23:59 am

I don't think it's a typo. Just do a search on "the Lost City of Z" and you'll find plenty of links. They all connect the city with Fawcett.

Are there any other authors that claim Fawcett called the city "X"?

EP

8/27/2014 09:30:32 am

Straight from the horse's mouth: "I call it 'Z' for the sake of convenience."

Not the Comte may be half-right. Though it still doesn't explain why Z. Does anyone know other instances of it?

Only Me

8/27/2014 10:23:42 am

Not outside of mathematics. Maybe the reason really is as simple as "for the sake of convenience." If he had called the city "Y" or "Q", etc., we might be having the same discussion.

EP

8/27/2014 10:38:17 am

I sure hope so! :)

Doesn't mean it's a worthless question. It could have been of some occult significance. It still could be, for all we know. (Because Fawcett isn't exactly the most trustworthy autobiographer.)

Only Me

8/27/2014 11:33:29 am

"It could have been of some occult significance."

That's an interesting proposition. I don't know if the occult attached significance to letters of the alphabet or not. Has anybody come across an example of this?

EP

8/27/2014 12:19:20 pm

Oh, that's, like, Occultism 101! Kabbalah, to mention just one prominent example, is full of it:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/zdm/zdm004.htm

I'm now curious whether there was anything more specifically Theosophist... brb

EP

8/27/2014 12:43:39 pm

I don't know how much a stretch this is (and it's nothing more than a conjecture on my part), but here is something that could have contributed to it:

http://www.sacred-texts.com/the/sd/sd2-2-11.htm

(Also, ask yourself: Does Fawcett strike you as a guy who would have called a lost city of the Atlanteans "Z" for mere convenience? Or a guy who would have called it "Z" for crazy occult reasons and lied about it in order to come across as relaively sane?)

Only Me

8/27/2014 01:44:52 pm

That was some serious information overload. At least now I understand what you meant by occult significance.

Given Fawcett's tendency for wild stories, you make a valid point. I wonder just how deep into Theosophy he really was.

EP

8/27/2014 01:54:47 pm

Since his brother helped Blavatsky research the book I linked above, I'd say he was definitely in too deep.

Also, there is that part where he died looking for a lost Atlantean city! :)

666

8/27/2014 08:09:03 am

Fawcett probably inspired Conan Doyle's novel The Lost World
They both knew each other

Jason, you should check the last sentence of paragraph five. I don't believe "few" is the word you intended.
As far as "Lost Cities hidden in the wilds" go, that is something that has been driving legitimate and fringe explorers for a long time. Ever since the first Mayan ruins were discovered in the 1830's, it has been every explorers dream to find an un-known city of an un-heard of civilization, where the jungle has only partially overgrown its structures, and nothing has been looted from it. Unfortunately, reality doesn't work that way. The ruins are overgrown and if they weren't looted in antiquity, they wil be by modern looters.

It isn't so much his search for a lost city that's shocking (Hiram Bingham did the same thing with Machu Picchu at roughly the same time.) but rather that he was hiding an occult purpose looking for the ancient astronauts' home base!

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EP

8/27/2014 12:26:59 pm

That's not really all that shocking either. It's not like Fawcett is the only British traveler of the colonial era to have utterly batshit mystical beliefs. Look under 'Lawrence, T. E.' for more.

spookyparadigm

8/27/2014 07:22:24 pm

EP, could you spell that out a little?

EP

8/28/2014 04:17:21 am

Which part?

EP

8/28/2014 05:25:15 am

If you're thinking I'm being unfair to T. E. Lawrence, then I agree - he's far from the best example of "utterly batshit". I guess I was relying on hazy memories of his discussion of religion in Seven Pillars, which I assumed to be fairly sympathetic.

As for the general point about British travelers, it shouldn't be controversial. A better example is Robert Felkin. (And I'm not even thinking of everyone who'd spent time in Asia at some point for "enlightenment"-related reasons.)

spookyparadigm

8/28/2014 07:05:56 am

I don't know that much about Lawrence. I am not aware of any particularly weird ideas of his because I'm not particularly of his ideas generally. It is my understanding that he had at least some interest in Ubar, but other than that, I don't know that much about him. I intend to change that in the future, hence why I ask.

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EP

8/28/2014 08:24:00 am

My understanding is that he believed in some kind of generic "Higher Power". His discussion of Semitic religion reminded me of Thomas Mann, for what it's worth. I'd pucked up on a kind of creepy "in the emptiness of the desert the Divine is uncomfortay close" vibe.

May I ask why the interest in Lawrence?

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spookyparadigm

8/28/2014 09:34:43 am

I'm interested in some of the beliefs and practices of early archaeologists.

Those don't seem too whacked out.

EP

8/28/2014 10:14:35 am

Have you read any of Bruce Trigger's work on the history of archaeology? (I really like A History of Archaeological Thought)

spookyparadigm

8/28/2014 11:54:21 am

I read it years ago as a required textbook in grad school.

BillUSA

8/28/2014 11:41:17 am

I remember reading some account of Fawcett's disappearance a long time ago but I always found the Michael Rockefeller disappearance much more interesting. The Fawcett story gave me the sense of a late-1930's adventure film - one that seemed too contrived.

Now Rockefeller's story is more tangible and piqued my interest because there are so many theories. I know Carl Hoffman penned a book that hit the shelves this year, but I have yet to read it. The theory put forth says that he was main course at some tribal feast.

I'll admit that has the best odds of the bunch if by only a hair in contrast to the possibility that a wild creature got him.

The subject of lost cities is a dead one even if satellites spotted the foundations of a number of structures in the jungle. To me, that can be a lost city. The notion that one was found to be mostly intact even nearly 100 years ago is quite hard to believe.

But, it sells books so.....

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Cesar Assis

8/28/2014 01:29:21 pm

Ciudad Perdida (Lost City) was discovered in Colombia in 1976.

As for Fawcett no mystery since 1957, when his son Brian Fawcett published the book Ruins in the Sky showing that his father was searching geologial ruiniform natural formations.

Brian personally flew some of these pseudo-cities when in Brazil searching for his brother.

I have read about the disappearance of both Michael Rockefeller, hearing about when I was in the Philippines and reading an old SAGA MAGAZINE article on it and the 'identification' of the man who ate him, etc. which seems to have been dismissed or forgotten afterwards and is now rearing its 'grisly' head and also the disappearance of Col Fawcett in an old FATE MAGAZINE when I was in eighth grade or so. I am also acquainted with THEOSOPHY. I watched THE SECRETS OF THE DEAD recently and also THE ROOSEVELTS on PBS which had things on Fawcett. Many explorers of the AMAZON have been featured in a book which I have yet to read. BUT, LOST CITIES or traces of them is not a 'dead' topic but is actively being pursued by many archeologists in far too many ways to describe here and one need only go to underwater explorations and deep cavern dives to find artifacts but THERA is one of the more modern discoveries. Anyway, it pays to be a bit skeptical and less gullible no matter how exotic and fantastic some appealing notions are. No-sweat approaches on the internet are no substitute for getting out into the mountains and bushes and forests/jungles and trekking about and finding things rather than from a comfortable armchair where nowadays you are glued to a computer usually.

I believe Fawcett called his Lost City 'Z' because it was the last letter in the alphabet and what he thought was the last lost city to be found.
Exploration Fawcett was a very interesting book that made me want to read more about Colonel Fawcett and his ill fated expedition into the Amazon jungle. A well researched dramatization of Fawcett's last expedition and what may have happened to him can be found in this book: "AN UNEXPECTED ADVENTURE - Journey to the Lost City: The Search for Colonel Fawcett's Lost City" available on Amazon.(ASIN:B00C4QX1UE) More info here: http://www.benhammottbooks.com
An excellent website about Fawcett,that includes old newspaper reports about Fawcett's disappearance and an English translation of manuscript 512, an ancient document that led Fawcett to believe in a lost city, is here: http://www.fawcettadventure.com

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About Me

I'm an author and editor who has published on a range of topics, including archaeology, science, and horror fiction. There's more about me in the About Jason tab.